Last spring, 62 percent of the graduates from 38 central Ohio schools received at least a B
average, according to a
Dispatch analysis. Nearly 20 percent got As. The numbers rise at particular schools.

At Dublin Jerome, 34 percent of graduates had an A average. And that doesn't include the extra
boost that students get for taking challenging courses such as Advanced Placement classes.
Accounting for those classes, 53percent earned As.

Olentangy Liberty, another highly rated school, looks stronger, or weaker, depending on which
number you use. More than 36 percent of graduates had at least a 3.5 based on unweighted GPAs, but
college-prep classes didn't provide as big a boost. Nearly 44 percent of Liberty graduates had As
based on weighted GPAs.

So which school has better students? Experts say grades won't give the answer, that they tell
only part of the story.

Intense competition to get into college has influenced the marks given by today's high schools.
Many have adjusted grading scales so students have a better chance of getting an A, gotten rid of
class rank and recognized multiple students as valedictorians.

Winning the GPA race can bring rewards beyond admission to a college of choice. Doing well can
mean scholarships and better car-insurance rates, for example.

The dark side is that some students graduate from high school with good grades, then find out
they are not ready for college.

Half the graduating seniors at Licking Heights High School had a 2.9 or better in 2008, putting
the median GPA in the B range. And yet that class had an average ACT score below the state average
of 20, and only a quarter of students who took Advanced Placement tests scored well enough to
receive credit at most colleges.

Of those Licking Heights graduates who later attended a public college or university in Ohio, 58
percent had to take remedial math courses.

Preparing for college

Do good grades mean a high-school graduate has mastered the material and is ready for the next
level?

That's hard to determine, experts say. One place to look for clues is in college-entrance exams,
such as the ACT.

Ohio's seniors outperformed their peers nationally this year on the ACT's English, math, reading
and science tests.

Yet, 52 percent were not ready for college-level math, based on ACT benchmarks.

About 66 percent were unprepared for college-level biology, 42 percent were ill-equipped for
social studies and 28 percent were not ready for college English.

Many of those students most likely received As and Bs in high school, college counselors
say.

Mabel Freeman, who oversees undergraduate admissions at Ohio State University, said she has
noticed fewer Cs and Ds on applicants' records.

"C is viewed as a truly disturbing grade by many parents and students," Freeman said. "I talk to
my colleagues around the country and they say the same thing: You don't see the same percentage of
average grades than what you saw 20 years ago."

In Dublin, half the graduates from the three high schools had a cumulative GPA of 3.3 or better
last school year. That's right at the B-plus line.

The grade-point average is high because teachers encourage students to master the material
before moving on, said Tracey Miller, who oversees secondary education in the district.

Dublin students also can retake classes to improve their grades. So if a student who received an
F repeated the class and earned a B, the higher grade replaces the F in the GPA.

"If a student learned a B's worth of material, the grade should reflect what is learned," Miller
said.

The survey says

Although there are variations, schools with the highest grade-point averages tend to have
students who also do well on state achievement tests and in college, according to a
Dispatch analysis.

Among 37 schools that provided unweighted GPAs for the Class of 2008, the median ranged from a
3.33, or B-plus, to a 2.25, a C
. Seven of those high schools had median GPAs higher than a 3.0: all three Dublin
schools, Gahanna Lincoln, Granville, Olentangy Liberty and Pickerington North.

The schools have common characteristics:

• All were rated excellent by the state.

• Their mean ACT scores all were above average for the state (21.7) and nation (21.1) - Gahanna
Lincoln had the lowest, at 22, and Dublin Jerome topped the list at 25.

• Among students who took Advanced Placement exams, passing rates varied from 67.1 percent
(Dublin Scioto) to 78.9 percent (Pickerington North). Most colleges that give credit require a 3 or
better on the tests.

It makes sense that students who did well in class also had high scores on standardized exams,
said Jay McTighe, an educational consultant and former director of the Maryland Assessment
Consortium, a state collaboration of school districts.

"In some cases, No Child Left Behind and the national standards movement has placed a heavy
emphasis on state testing and scores," he said.

Conversely, high schools with lower median GPAs tend to have lower scores on state achievement
tests and college-entrance exams.

The 10 high schools at the bottom of the
Dispatch GPA survey, which had medians in the C-range for the Class of 2008, reflect
that.

The state rated all but one school at "continuous improvement," the equivalent of a C grade.
Mean ACT scores were below the state average by as much as 6 points. None of the AP test-takers in
seven schools earned a passing rate on an exam.

Why we grade

Experts caution not to put too much stock in GPAs.

Students can pad their GPAs by signing up for easier courses or weighted classes, said Ken
O'Connor, a grading consultant and author of
How to Grade for Learning: Linking Grades to Standards. He also noted that grades can be
adjusted because of behavior, effort and extra credit, which can misrepresent how much students
have learned.

"There are students that often fall on their face at the next level because of it," he said.

Grades have multiple purposes, said Thomas Guskey, a professor of educational psychology at the
University of Kentucky and author of several books about grading.

They can tell students how they are doing in school, identify those who deserve honors or need
academic help, and serve as an incentive to encourage kids to study.

"We have this wide variation of practices that teachers employ, and that inconsistency leads to
confusion for students," Guskey said. "A lot of kids see this as a huge game. They become
strategists and learn how to play it."

Teachers also face mounting pressure to make sure students get good grades.

"As you go through the generational change to the millennial student - students who've grown up
getting a trophy every time they've played a sport - parents want to protect their kids from
failing," said Jim Jump, board president at the National Association for College Admission
Counseling.

"With all the attention on how selective college admissions are, there is pressure not to give
low grades," said Jump, who also is director of guidance at St. Christopher's School in
Virginia.

Schools are also under pressure because they are judged by standards that insist that kids be
taught to the highest level possible, said Mark Raiff, executive director of secondary learning at
Olentangy schools.

"We have to teach until a student has mastered the material," he said. "If you are showing me
you're not progressing, I'm going to reteach, reteach, reteach until you learn."

That is why 10 percent of Olentangy Liberty students receive Ds or Fs , he said.

"The kids don't have the option to choose to fail," he said. "They can (retake the class and)
replace the lower grade with the higher grade."

Still, an A at one high school is different from one at another. Colleges have become savvier at
interpreting what grades mean, including tracking students' performance in college, to
better-understand the grades they earned in high school.

Freeman said there are a handful of high schools - such as Catholic boys high schools - that
have consistently maintained strict grading standards, based on how the students performed at Ohio
State.

"We know students with a B in those high schools have worked hard for them," she said. "You're
not going to see a third of the class with a 4.0 GPA. They have their own rigor and standards, and
we haven't seen them change that much."

Parents and prospective students, however, might not realize that colleges are attuned to the
meaning behind grades.

Freeman recalled a recent conversation with a parent who wanted to know why her honor-roll child
was not admitted to Ohio State despite earning a 3.4 GPA.

After prolonged back-and-forth with the parent, Freeman called the student's high-school
counselor to discuss the situation. She noted that more than two-thirds of the school's senior
class had a 3.4 GPA or higher.

The counselor agreed.

"I know that and you know that. But that's the reality and I have to live in this community,"
the counselor told her. "There's a lot of pressure in our community for students to get good
grades. At some point, probably when they apply to college, they'll realize they are not as good as
they thought."